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10 - The War of The Worlds - H G Wells · Adventure Books Collection

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  Chapter ten in the Storm. Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill.
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  The scent of hay was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Purfored,
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  and the hedges on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog roses.
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  The heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down Maybury Hill
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  ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very peaceful and still.
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  We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine o'clock, and the horse had an
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  hour's rest while I took supper with my cousins and commended my wife to their
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  care. My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive and seemed oppressed with forebodings
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  of evil. I talked to her reassuringly, pointing out that the Martians were
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  tied to the pit by sheer heaviness, and the utmost could but crawl a
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  little out of it. But she answered only in monosyllables. Had it not
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  been for my promise to the innkeeper, she would, I think, have
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  urged me to stay in Leatherhead that night, Would that I had her face,
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  I remember, was very white. As we parted for my own part.
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  I had been feverishly excited all day, something very like the war fever
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  that occasionally runs through a civilized community had got into my blood and in my
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  heart. I was not so very sorry that I had to return to Maybury
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  that night. I was even afraid that that last fusillade I had heard might
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  mean the extermination of our invaders from Mars. I can best express my state
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  of mind by saying that I wanted to be in at the death. It
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  was nearly eleven when I started to return. The night was unexpectedly dark.
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  To me walking out of the lighted passage of my cousin's house, it seemed
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  indeed black, and it was as hot and close as the day. Overhead,
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  the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath stirred the shrubs about
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  us. My cousin's man lit both lamps happily, I knew the road intimately.
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  My wife stood in the light of the doorway and watched me until I
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  jumped up into the dog cart. Then abruptly she turned and went in,
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  leaving my cousin's side by side, wishing me good hab. I was a
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  little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife's fears, But very soon
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  my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that time I was absolutely in the
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  dark as to the course of the evening's fighting. I did not know even
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  the circumstances that had precipitated the conflict. As I came through Ocumbe, for
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  that was the way I returned, and not through Send and Old Woking,
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  I saw along the western horizon a blood red glow, which, as I
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  drew nearer, crept slowly up the sky. The driving clouds of the gathering
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  thunder storm mingled there with masses of black and red smoke. Ripley Street was
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  deserted, and except for a lighted window or so, the village showed not
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  a sign of life. But I narrowly escaped an accident at the corner of
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  the road to Perford, where a knot of people stood with their backs to
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  me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I do not know
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  what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill, Nor do I know
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  of the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping securely or deserted and
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  empty, or harassed and watching against the terror of the night. From Ripley
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  until I came through Perford. I was in the valley of the way,
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  and the red glare was hidden from me. As I ascended the little hill
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  beyond Perfered Church, the glare came into view again, and the trees about
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  me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that was upon me. Then
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  I heard midnight peeling out from Perfect Church behind me, and then came the
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  silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its tree tops and roofs black and sharp against
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  the red. Even as I beheld this, a lurid green glare lit the
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  road about me and showed the distant woods towards Addleston. I felt a tug
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  at the reins. I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced, as
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  it were, by a thread of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and
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  falling into the field. To my left. It was the third falling star,
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  close on its apparition and blindingly violet. By contrast, danced out the
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  first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst like a rocket overhead.
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  The horse took the bit between his teeth and bolted. A moderate incline
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  runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill and down this we clattered. Once the
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  lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a succession of flashes as
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  I have ever seen. The thunderclaps treading one on the heels of another,
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  and with a strange crackling accompaniment, sounded more like the working of a giant
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  electric machine than the usual detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and confusing,
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  and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the
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  slope. At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then
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  abruptly my attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the opposite slope
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  of Maybury Hill. At first I took it for the wet roof of a
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  house, but one flash following another showed it to be in swift, rolling
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  movement. It was an elusive vision, a moment of bewildering darkness, and
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  then in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the orphanage near the
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  crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, and this
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  problematical object came out clear and sharp and bright. And this thing I saw,
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  how can I describe it? A monstrous tripod higher than many houses,
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  striding over the young pine trees and smashing them aside in its career. A
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  walking engine of glittering metal striding now across the heather, articulate ropes of steel
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  dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot
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  of the thunder. A flash, and it came out, vividly, heeling
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  over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear,
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  almost instantly, as it seemed with the next flash a hundred yards nearer.
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  Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground. That
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  was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool,
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  imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand. Then suddenly the
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  trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted as brittle reeds are parted
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  by a man thrusting through them. They were snapped off and driven headlong,
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  and a second huge tripod appeared, rushing as it seemed, headlong towards me,
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  and I was galloping hard to meet it, not stopping to look again.
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  I wrenched the horse's head hard round the right, and in another moment
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  the dog cart had heeled over upon the horse. The shafts smashed noisily,
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  and I was flung sideways and fell heavily into a shallow pool of water.
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  I crawled out almost immediately and crouched my feet still in the water under a
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  clump of firs. The horse lay motionless, his neck was broken, poor
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  brute, And by the lightning flow, I saw the black bulk of the
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  overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still spinning slowly. In another
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  moment, the colossal mechanism went striding by me and passed uphill towards Purford.
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  Seen nearer, the thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate
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  machine driving on its way machine. It was with a ringing metallic pace and
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  long, flexible, glittering tentacles, one of which gripped a young pine tree,
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  swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it
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  went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro
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  with the inevitable suggestion of a head. Looking about behind the main body was
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  a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of
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  green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the creature swept by
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  me, and in an instant it was gone so much I saw then,
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  all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning in blinding highlights and dense black shadows.
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  As it passed, it set up an exultant, deafening howl that drowned
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  the thunder. Allo Allo. And in another minute it was with its companion
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  half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no
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  doubt this thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had
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  fired at us from Mars. For some minutes I lay there in the rain
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  and darkness, watching by the intermittent light these monstrous beings of metal moving about
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  in the distance over the hedgetops. A thin hail was now beginning, and
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  as it came and went, their figures grew misty, and then flashed into
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  clearness again. Now and then came a gap in the light, and the
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  night swallowed them up. I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below.
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  It was some time before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the
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  bank to a drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril.
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  Not far from me was a little one roomed squatter's hut of wood, surrounded
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  by a patch of potato garden. I struggled to my feet at last,
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  and crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a run
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  for this. I hammered at the door, but I could not make the
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  people here, if there were any people inside, And after a time I
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  desisted, and, availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the
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  way, succeeded in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into the pine
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  woods towards Maybury. Under cover of this, I pushed on, wet and
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  shivering, now towards my own house. I walked among the trees, trying
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  to find the footpath. It was very dark indeed in the wood, for
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  the lightning was now becoming infrequent, and the hail, which was pouring down
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  in a torrent, fell in columns through the gaps in the heavy foliage.
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  If I had fully realized the meaning of all the things I had seen,
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  I should have immediately worked my way round through byfleet to Street, Cobham,
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  and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead. But that night the
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  strangeness of things about me and my physical wretchedness prevented me. For I was
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  bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened and blinded by the storm.
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  I had a vague idea of going on to my own house, and
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  that was as much motive as I had. I staggered through the trees,
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  fell into a ditch and bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed
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  out into the lane that ran down from the College Arms. I said splashed,
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  for the storm water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy
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  torrent. There in the darkness, a man blundered into me and sent me
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  reeling back. He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed
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  on before I could gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him. So heavy
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  was the stress of this storm just at this place that I had the hardest
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  task to win my way up the hill. I went close up to the
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  fence on the left and worked my way along its palings. Near the top,
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  I stumbled upon something soft, and by a flash of lightning saw between
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  my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of boots. Before I
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  could distinguish clearly how the man lay, the flicker of light had passed.
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  I stood over him, waiting for the next flash. When it came,
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  I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily dressed.
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  His head was bare under his body, and he lay crumpled up close to
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  the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it. Overcoming the
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  repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a dead body, I stooped
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  and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was quite dead.
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  Apparently his neck had been broken. The lightning flashed for a third time,
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  and his face leaped upon me. I sprang to my feet. It was
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  the landlord of the spotted dog, whose conveyance I had taken. I stepped
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  over him gingerly, and pushed on up the hill. I made my way
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  by the police station and the college arms towards my own house. Nothing was
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  burning on the hillside, though from the common there still came a red glare
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  and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the drenching hail. So
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  far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about me were mostly
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  uninjured by the college arm. A dark heap lay in the road. Down
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  the road towards Maybury Bridge, there were voices and the sound of feet,
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  but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I
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  let myself in with my latch key closed, locked and bolted the door,
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  staggered to the foot of the staircase and sat down. My imagination was full
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  of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against the fence.
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  I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall,
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  shivering violently. End of Section ten.